| repak shawahb | |||||
| mental defenestration for the masses | |||||
blogroll |
Fri, 30 Dec 2005 Watching the last few OC episodes of Season 2, I noticed a cool song during the funeral scene (sorry, not to ruin it—at least I didn't tell you who dies). Turns out, it's by an artist who calls herself Imogen Heap. I don't have it up on positron yet, but it'll get there eventually, at which point those of you "in the know," as it were, ought to grab it, give it a listen, and buy the CD. Yeah, yeah, the feedback loop is attenuated somewhat, but some positive feedback is better than none. If you like Bjork, give Imogen a try. I think it's pretty good stuff. [ permalink | 2 comments ] Wed, 28 Dec 2005Apparently, until a couple days ago, I was the only person in my family who knew the joy of teh OC. Like I said, until a couple days ago, when Aziza decided to pick up the DVDs of seasons 1 and 2. As I write this, we are in the final minutes of episode 26. Once season 1 is defeated, I'm going to bed. Anna is still the best of the Seth coven, and I'll never forgive him for fucking that shit up. My work at the bench (conveniently located in front of the Provider-of-teh-OC) has been fruitful, and various documents shall soon be published discussing my progress. Tue, 27 Dec 2005 Vacation has treated me well thus far. I've been slaving away at my makeshift workbench, the coffee table in the family room—now the home of two laptops, my trusty Tek 2465 (brought along from Austin in lieu of my usual Christmas companion, my PS2), a breadboard, and assorted signal and power wiring for the whole thing. My work thus far has produced a reasonably large amount of PIC code, a brand-spanking-new PCB layout, a couple really nifty high-voltage circuits, and a newfound appreciation for the GNU PIC utilities, notably gpasm and gpsim. Today Dave Crimmins, a friend I haven't seen in something like three or four years, came over and hung out for an hour or so. He just got back from Iraq three days ago—he was in the Army in Korea just after we got out of high school (yup, we still have an active military presence there) and was called up from the reserves a bit over a year ago. He was in an engineering crew sweeping roadways for explosives, and had some interesting stories to report, from Iraqi police helping the insurgents plant bombs along the roadways to the overblown reports of the quality of the Republican Guard. Quoth Dave, "It would've been fun to go out and fight those guys in the desert—it would have been like a video game." Indeed. I'll probably go get a drink with Dave later this week, and will certainly pass along any other interesting stories I hear. [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Wed, 21 Dec 2005I adore my laptop, but it is pretty friggin big. Beyond that, it doesn't have a serial port, and as we all know, USB-to-serial converters are never good enough (with the exception of this one, I believe—we shall see tomorrow). That really sucks, because I was planning on doing some stuff at home over Christmas that would require a PIC programmer, and for that I need a real serial port. Then it hit me: I can just get IT to give me a Thinkpad T30 over the break, complete with a real honest-to-God serial port sticking out of the back. Hotness. Next problem: Windows! The answer, of course, is Knoppix to the rescue. Persistent data? Thanks to Dell (who gave me a "free" 128MB USB stick when I got my computer), I have that taken care of, too, as Knoppix can, since version 3.8 or thereabouts, save persistent data on a USB stick and seamlessly reintegrate it at the next boot. This vacation, then, will be a test of two things: first, how well does this Knoppix persitent thing work? Second, can my cantankerous disregard for all windowmanagers post-fvwm2 survive the week with nothing but KDE to get me by? All of this, and more, shall be revealed! [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Mon, 19 Dec 2005Just a little peek. [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Hey, remember that whole ticket thing and the defensive driving and all that jazz? Well, I took the course yesterday, and I am truly a changed man. I'll never speed again. No, the course didn't convince me to drive better. It was, however, fucking torture. According to the rules set out by the State, the course must take a minimum of 6 hours, including 1 hour of mandatory break. So I couldn't just run through it in an hour like any reasonable person would—I had to flip back and forth between the course and a few lively games of C&C Generals while watching the Chargers defeat the Colts (woot!) and then the Cowboys get eaten alive by the Redskins (Little Big Horn, indeed). But hey, apparently I'm a really safe driver, because I got 100% on the final test. Remember that next time you're clawing for the oh shit! handle as we blow past some poor old woman at 140, horn and stereo punctuating the screams of the passengers and the sirens blaring behind us. ...and just think, we won't even have three stars yet! [ permalink | 2 comments ] Sat, 17 Dec 2005I went and saw Chronicles of Narnia tonight, and it made me way happy. My older sister called me last weekend to tell me that she'd gone and seen it, and recommended that I do so as well. See, when we were little, my sisters and I loved the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—and the new version stands up to the test of memory-inflated-over-time. Visuals get two thumbs up. The special effects were done by Industrial Light and Magic (Lucasfilms's CG/makeup/effects house), and they were everything you'd expect. Best visual in the whole thing, for me, was the brief phoenix animation in the middle of the big battle. Tilda Swinton was great as the White Witch, Liam Neeson's voice acting as Aslan was everything you'd expect it to be, and (as I managed to call in the theater!) Michael Madsen lent his voice to Maugrim, the Witch's wolfish chief of security. The kids were, well, kids, but they played their roles well enough. Oh yeah, and the Professor, despite his very brief appearances (just as in the book), was very cool, too. Go see it in the theatres. It's worth the big screen. Next up, King Kong. [ permalink | 3 comments ] Fri, 16 Dec 2005I'm slouching towards Gomorrah, and it's DSP code all the way down. As of yesterday, I'm being so presumptuous as to write patch code for the DSP on the ProSLIC, which is actually an interesting challenge. The code that's already in there is on a ROM, so it can't be modified, but we have a 1024 word patch RAM and an 8-entry patch table, so with a little sleight of mind you can turn its brown eyes blue, so to speak. In other news, I've found a new project to work on over Christmas break. I can't tell you what it is, but it does involve the AD7302, mostly because I'm too lazy to bother assembling a pair of 8-bit resistor/op-amp DACs. [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Tue, 13 Dec 2005
a cappucino machine. no no, a sno-cone maker.
Watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Mike and Cyrus tonight. It's like a combination of Assassins and True Lies. Really fun. Angelina is almost as hot as Charlize—pretty much the highest praise I can give. Guerolito isn't as much a remix album as an album remix; that is, the track ordering is the same as Guero, except they're all remixed. I haven't gotten all the way through it yet, but it's really fucking good. Now it's bedtime. Tomorrow I get to start on calibrations! [ permalink | 4 comments ] Running to Best Buy to pick up Beck's new album, Guerolito. I don't care that it's a remix album, it's still badass that he's got another one out. Full report forthcoming. [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Mon, 12 Dec 2005What's more incongruous: a guy wearing a football jersey walking into an Aveda store, or the notion that anyone would wear a Tim Rattay 49ers #13 jersey? Either way, I was getting some funny looks. [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Sun, 11 Dec 2005Another such fantasy football victory and I am undone. Actually, I'm undone regardless, but I managed to pull out a win on the last game of the season to keep Mike from going to the playoffs. With regard to fantasy football, I am talented in one respect: to cause injury. This year, I drafted Javon Walker (out for the season after the first game), Patrick Crayton (out after three or four games), Braylon Edwards (out for the rest of the season as of last week, the only week in which he had a decent game), Brian Westbrook (out for the season and probably half of next season with a Lisfranc fracture), Darrell Jackson (out for most of the season, but coming back just in time for the last couple games, and probably the playoffs, if the Seahawks make it), and probably some others I'm forgetting. Apparently getting drafted by me is as bad as appearing on the cover of the Madden NFL video game. Anyone have any requests for next year? [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Fri, 09 Dec 2005
gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal goal goal goal goal goal goal goal
It's official: the FIB fix I proposed on Monday and worked out Tuesday with Marius works perfectly. Also, I've confirmed on more than one part that Zhiwei's "40μA" current isn't. Score one for the fat man. In other news, I've decided that amber (#FFBF00) makes a much better foreground color than gray for my XTerms. It looks horrible against this medium gray, but against either white or black it's quite visible. I knew you wanted to know that. [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Wed, 07 Dec 2005...when the weather turns "cold." Right now outside it's pretending to spit "freezing rain." I drove home from Mike's and people were literally going 25 MPH on the highway—and they just don't get that it's braking you have to worry about. On one hill on Loop 360, there were about a dozen cars just pulled off—some crashed into others, some just stopped out of fear, apparently—and the people still on the road were doing unspeakably stupid things in an obvious attempt to claim money from their insurance company. Oh, also, we watched D.E.B.S. tonight. Holy crap that's a bad movie—about high school-aged female spies, one of whom happens to get into a lesbian tryst with the archvillain. I think they knew their target audience well. [ permalink | 2 comments ]
we can't stop! it's too dangerous!
I've begun to bittorrent every episode of Top Gear I can find, because this show is awesome. In short, it's a (very!) humorous show about serious cars. It's funny to hear British guys making fun of the French and Germans (and, well, everyone else, too). [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Tue, 06 Dec 2005More probing today at work. This time, I discovered the solution to the other mystery I've been chasing down—the supposedly accurate 40μA current I'm getting from the bandgap is a couple percent off! Woot. Acquitted on all charges. We now return me to my regularly scheduled programming, consisting of finding shit other people fucked up (not that I wasn't doing that already, as it turns out)! [ permalink | 3 comments ] Mon, 05 Dec 2005
Sunday slumber mirthfully broken; manic Monday; submitted for thirsty Thursday
On Sunday morning, I dreamed that a group of Fort Awesomeites were sitting around shooting the shit. Someone (I'm not sure who) asked, "what the fuck is a brainchild?" Ian, in my dream, replies (with perfect Ian nuance), "deeelicious." I actually laughed myself awake. Monday was an extremely productive day. First, I learned the basics of probing a de-capped, de-passivated chip fabricated in .18μM CMOS with a probe tip so small that you don't actually see the tip under the microscope—you see only an interference pattern in approximately the spot where the tip should be. Man that fucker is small. After learning some probing techniques, I was able to track down (with Marius's help) the source of all (most?) of the problems we'd been seeing with my circuit—a switchcap resistor which had been unaccounted for and which managed to screw up the gain of a particular sensor by a good 5%. Holy shit! I'm fucking pumped as shit about this, since I've been beating my head against a wall on this particular issue for a week or more, and have just cracked it wide open. Bad ass. A FIB fix is in the works as we speak. Finally, Cyrus suggested tonight while hanging out with Mike and me that we needed to invent a new drink—the Basra Bunker-Buster. After much brainstorming, we settled (by way of thoughts of Bomb Pops, Jell-o shots, and some godawful ideas too horrible to even mention) on the following:
This Friday is the SiLabs Christmas party. The afterparty, at Mike's house, will feature these. Sat, 03 Dec 2005 The KartBoy shifter and bushings are installed. My transmission officially makes me horny. Rodin, if you're looking for a relatively inexpensive upgrade to your car that will make you smile every time you drive it, they make short shifter and bushing kits for the Impreza wagon, too... [ permalink | 0 comments (add one you lazy bastard!) ] Fri, 02 Dec 2005I went and saw Aeon Flux tonight with Alida, Matt, and Cindy. I know, this movie has been completely panned by the critics, and I guess I can kind of see why—I doubt any of them have seen the entire animated series, which would probably have enhanced their appreciation for the whole thing a lot more. So how do the two compare? Well, they don't, really. The cartoon is still clearly better, but I appreciated the way that the movie borrowed certain elements from the cartoon—a nod to fans of the series—and turned them into something distinctly different. How else are you going to turn a show consisting of fifteen episodes (comprising the 6-part pilot, four shorts, during each of which Aeon dies, and ten full-length episodes) which provide only a glimpse at some overarching plot into a coherent film that lasts ninety minutes? So the world is somewhat different and the plot and characters are a patchwork of transplants from different parts of the series. How about the action? Well, not great, but not bad. The special effects, though not altogether in-your-face, are kind of cool nevertheless. The fight scenes are the standard too-close-and-cutting-too-fast bullshit that Hollywood tends to produce on account of a fundamental lack of martial arts talent and bad choreography. Oh yeah, and Charlize Theron is almost believable in her role as the best and most ruthless covert ops agent in the world. Hey, at least they eventually get the hair pretty close to right—though, since it's Charlize, the scenery, though not always correct, is always good. The verdict: unless you're catching a matinée or, like me, you absolutely couldn't wait for this movie to come out, wait until video (hey, you can probably even get Muth to rent it for you). Oh yeah, and if you have the chance, watch the cartoon series first. Thu, 01 Dec 2005 Happy December. Also, for your viewing pleasure, another Nürburgring run, this time in a Subaru STi Spec C. Seven minutes, fifty-nine seconds, baby. [ permalink | 2 comments ] |
||||